I’ve been saying for years that Russian Communism was a cult of Russian Orthodoxy, while Chinese Communism was a cult of Confucianism. It’s nice to know others have noticed this.
Mao believed too much in his own theology to appoint himself Emperor; it’s doubtful that Xi is a true believer. Do you think he will actually claim the Mandate of Heaven?
“Do you think he will actually claim the Mandate of Heaven?”
Publicly no; but to some very select cronies maybe.
I think the cultures of Russia and China exceed the influences of Confucianism or the Russian Orthodox church. That is not to say that leadership players have not used them as tools of their governing elites, but I think that is my point, they, and political ideologies were, and are tools, of a larger and overriding culture of what is accepted as legitimate power.
The left would say that the Soviets reformed or remade or destroyed the empire of the Russian Czars, while I would argue they merely assumed it, including all its systems of power (and absolutely all its foreign & domestic intelligence structure and community), and put the public pastiche of Communism as its public face; but power, and holding it was always the primary, secondary and only objective, and they understood what was acceptable (customary) in the context of the Russian culture.